Don’t you just love the names they come up with for paint colors? Some make perfect sense, such as “Sawdust”, “Egg Yolk” and “Strawberry Splash” – But then you’ve got the ones that are random but soooooo much fun to say: Things like “Calypso Berry”, “Maggie’s Magic”, “Mermaid’s Tail” and “Siesta Sands”…
We found a way to fit into both categories when we chose “Teal Zeal” for the new color in the Studio 🙂
It’s SUPER fun to say but also looks exactly like the name implies! I’ll warn you though, it’s a bit intense…Here’s the inspiration photo that “had me at ‘hello'”:
Just look at how the “Teal Zeal” walls in that bedroom make it seem rich, luxuriant and like a trip to the Caribbean!!! I’m totally okay with feeling like I’m in the airy tropics while working in my studio. It took about 2 seconds for my imagination to start screaming at me that “This is the color for you/me!”.
So swipe went my new Lowe’s credit card and we walked out with a gallon of the stuff! We also bought a tiny sample size of the pale green in the collection – “Quaking Grass”. I’m going to use it to paint the inside of a white bookshelf and may also put it in the linen closet…I’ve never painted the inside of a closet before, but why stop at the outer walls when you can make ALL the walls pop?? We’ll see…
But back to “Teal Zeal” – This color is a little out of my comfort zone (which is typically made up mostly of subdued grays, light yellows and pale greens and blues). I have zero experience with this dark and intense of a color, but I love a challenge 🙂
Usually I come up with a patterned fabric or a piece of art first to serve as my go-to inspiration piece, but now all I have to go from is a solid paint swatch…The horrors!!! (pronounced [hor-ahs])
I did some searching on Etsy, typing in the term “teal”, and came up with thousands of options but nothing the screamed “THAT’S IT” to me…
I like the idea of photography, but we’ve “been there, done that” in the master bedroom.
To narrow the search a bit, I decided that I needed to pick a coordinating color to go with the teal. This is after I had the revelation of “Why on earth did you search for teal art when you are going to have teal walls?? It’ll blend right in!”
After a little Google-Imaging, I stumbled upon this…
I found the image on www.taylormasoncreative.com and just love the color combo! Plus it’s got a sweet, uplifting Bible verse on it…Although I consider myself a spiritual person, I’ve never been a big reader of the Bible – But this one is very tender and light. It says:
“You’ve always given me breathing room,
A place to get away from it all.
A lifetime pass to your safe-house,
An open invitation as your guest.
You’ve always taken me seriously, God,
& made me welcome among those
Who know and love you.”
~Psalm 61:3
Love that!
But back to the colors…I like that this color combination is pretty much a marriage of all my favorites (and John’s too – We miraculously are drawn to the same favorites) – Teal is in there, along with green (ala “DreamGreenDIY” of course!) and gray. I also like the unexpected arrival of a taupe-y pink-ish color! Who woulda thunk it?!
But that still doesn’t get us any closer to an inspiration piece that makes our “Teal Zeal” make sense…We definitely have some direction now, but it all comes down to finding the perfect fabric, painting or rug to wrap everything up in a nicely coherent bow.
One problem is that there aren’t going to be any upholstered pieces in the room (with the exception of a desk chair with padded fabric seat) so I can’t resort to my go-to pillow. If I had that option, then one of these would already be on its way to our front door:
(If one of these adorable pillows works for YOUR room, check out the links to their Etsy pages in the photo credits below!)
But alas…These pillows would have no place in a room full of wooden furniture like our shelving unit, drafting table and desk…
I’ve got a few ticks up my sleeve for how I’m going to move forward with this conundrum, but I’ll save that for a little later. I KNOW there was a reason that John and I were so drawn to “Teal Zeal” that we bought a gallon of it about .5 seconds after seeing it in the Olympic inspiration booklet. We’ve I’ve just got to be patient until the perfect room unfolds around this crazy cool color we’ve chosen.
Stay tuned!
P.S. It’s now t-minus four days until “Couch Day”!!!! Come onnnnnn Friday! Any local boys want to help John move the current sofa to the basement??? Beer will be served as reward!!!
(Photo credit for cream/blue/green peony flower pillow: here; green/blue/pink floral pillow: here; green pillows: here)
